Domestic Air Travel Rises Over 18% in May

New Delhi: Driven by summer bookings, domestic air travel surged by a healthy 18.35 per cent in May over the same period last year, while budget carrier IndiGo continued its market domination with more than a third of the total traffic pie in the kitty.

All Indian carriers together ferried a total of 71.27 lakh passengers in May as against 60.22 lakh passengers in May 2014, data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed.

During May, another budget airline, SpiceJet, clocked the highest seat factor at 93.1 per cent helped by a series of low-fare schemes, announced by the carrier in the previous month.

In terms of number of passengers, while IndiGo transported 27.69 lakh paseengers, the number of passengers flown by Jet Airways during the reporting month stood at 13.01 lakh.

National carrier Air India's share in the total passenger traffic stood at 15.8 per cent as it ferried 11.8 passengers in the month.

The two new airlines - AirAsia India and Vistara - transported less than one lakh passengers in the month at 0.94 lakh and 0.93 lakh passengers, respectively.

Air Costa transported 0.61 lakh passengers while Air Pegasus 0.06 lakh.

IndiGo also recorded a high load factor of 91.9 per cent, followed by GoAir (89.4 per cent), AirAsia India (81.4 per cent) and Air Costa (81.2 per cent).

Jet Airways' load factor during May stood at 81.1 per cent while that of Air India was at 80.4 per cent.

The seat factor of the domestic airline rose over the previous month primarily due to the onset of tourist season, the aviation regulator said.